City officials open doors to new West Precinct location

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 3:34pm

Staff reports

City leaders officially opened the doors to the new West Police Precinct Wednesday morning on Charlotte Pike near White Bridge Road.

Mayor Karl Dean, police Chief Steve Anderson and recently appointed West Precinct Commander Marlene Pardue cut the ribbon on the new facility before leading officials and neighbors on a tour of the building, which is four times bigger than the old West Precinct, located farther out on Charlotte Pike by the Nashville West Shopping Center.

Dean, who included $5 million for construction of the precinct in the fiscal year 2010 capital budget, highlighted the new precinct’s LEED Silver certification that includes a pervious parking lot to reduce the amount of storm water runoff into the sewer system, a white roof to reduce heat absorption and other energy-efficient features.

The new location also includes a 2,300-square-foot community room, something the old precinct did without.

The mayor also pointed out that the office space at the building (the old home of the Bob Frensley Ford dealership) had been raised at least two feet, a response to the community’s concerns of locating the precinct at its new 5500 Charlotte Pike address after Richland Creek poured over its banks and thoroughly enveloped the property during last year’s May flood.

Overall, Metro spent an additional $2 million on flood mitigation on the facility, including construction of stonewalls in the front meant to divert floodwaters.

Anderson called the old West Precinct — which Dean’s office said was the city’s oldest and smallest of the six precincts — “cramped and woefully outdated.”

Two new precincts are currently in the works for Madison and Midtown Hills (12th Avenue at Wade Avenue, near Wedgewood Avenue). The new Madison Precinct is set to open next month, while the Midtown Hills precinct is slated for an early 2013 opening.

11 Comments on this post:

This real estate deal between Karl Dean and Bob Frensley has to rank with one of the most suspicious real estate dealings in the last 25 years.

By:bfra on 12/15/11 at 3:10

Would be interesting to know what an unbiased audit would reveal on this transaction. In fact on all of Karl's deals!

By:tenn.Big Dog on 12/15/11 at 8:53

Tenn. Big Dog--------Bob Frensley goes all the way back to the late 60's in connecting with local politicians
with lots of them going to jail, including Gov. Ray Blanton and Sheriff Fate Thomas. He is a schrewd Super Dealer. It is interesting that metro would buy this piece of property and spend millions on it aside from the purchase price.***********Looks like Mayor Dean has gotten into the Super Dealer's clutches now.

IT'LL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF OLE KARL ENDS UP IN JAIL LIKE ALL THE OTHER UNTOUCHABLES
DID. TRICKY DICKY FULTON HAD FEDERAL POLITICS THAT COVERD HIS ASS. WHEN HE CAME BACK FROM CONGRESS, HE COULDN'T LIVE ON THE MAYOR'S SALARY, FOR YEARS MOST ALL POLICE VEHICLES CAME FROM BOB FRENSLEY FORD, ALL PARTS PURCHASES CAME FROM FRENSLEY FORD TOO. NOW DICK FULTON LIVES IN BELLE MEADE.. RAGS TO RICHES. AMAZING, GO FIGURE. lol

By:jhr1925 on 12/15/11 at 9:12

Not to mention that Buddy Baker moved it FROM his district TO Holleman's district and helped broker the deal with Frensley (his close, personal friend). Why doesn't anyone look at the fact that for the last two years since that transaction was done, Buddy Baker drives Frensley Ford vehicles with dealer tags? All of their hands are dirty on this one. That property was valued at less than a quarter million and we (the taxpayers) bought it for several million. We got scammed and no one will ever get caught.

By:bfra on 12/15/11 at 11:44

Here, if politicians are crooked enough, they get honored with a bldg., street or someother public place named after them. As for Fulton, they should have named Church St., Fulton Mess, after the mess he made of it.

By:Left-of-Local on 12/15/11 at 12:07

And once again, our beautiful, progressive city leadership cannot FART without some Neocon hillbillies showing up to sniff the air and deliver commentary on the preceding meal...

By:bfra on 12/15/11 at 12:30

Left-of-Local - Guess you don't have enough upstairs to know when they are farting on you!

By:nvestnbna on 12/15/11 at 9:08

There is probably some smoke where there is fire, especially with respect to Frensley. That guy has to be one of the craftiest deal makers ever to walk our streets. I think he sold metro Fords for a while then when they switched to Chevys he did the deals through a country dealership he bought in Ashland City(probably just to sell Chevys to metro) much to the chagrin of many of the Chevy dealers in town(Bill Powell, E.B. Smith, and the Reeds).

On this deal, they may have over paid a little, it was still a large piece of property with a big building on it, with interstate frontage. Was it before the flood, I think so. If you haven't driven by you might want to, it looks great, will be super functional, and I think adds to the neighborhood.

On Dean, he has been one of the most active Mayors we've ever had, he's all over the place and trying to do decent things, sure he'll have made some mistakes, maybe even big ones, but my thinking is he has energetically pursued some fantastic things for our city, and people are rushing to be here. You have over 3000 residential units(apts) announced to be built within a couple of miles of downtown, real estate prices have been much more stable here than elsewhere. Some huge other projects, transit initiatives, and he leads a hike /tour/talk out at Shy's Hill last Saturday and 200+ people show up. I bet if any one of you call him, he'd return your call. If you really have a legitimate beef and you want to make your case, call him, his number's published.

By:Rasputin72 on 12/15/11 at 9:25

They overpaid by at least a million dollars.

By:nvestnbna on 12/16/11 at 2:18

Well, maybe so, but if the Tower Investments ruling stands, they underpaid several property owners, several million on the property for the convention center.

I think Carl Black paid 3.3 mil for a comparable property on crappy Murfreesboro Road about the same time. The Frensley property is a better property, regardless I just don't believe it was some contrived scheme by Dean and some alleged cronies to bilk the taxpayers.

Frensley is a cat that always seems to land on his feet. Bankrupted his Ford deal in the 80s or early 90s and managed to keep his Chrysler deal, even made it through the Chrysler bankruptcy where the top producing Chrysler dealer in the city got terminated.

By:Left-of-Local on 12/16/11 at 10:31

The precinct needed to move. The city is littered with defunct car dealer lots, mostly due to fallout from White Flight, and making use of those spaces is fine. Nothing our Mayor does will please the Neocons in this city.